


Rise From Darkness

by LymneirianApparition



Series: Rise From Darkness [1]
Category: Pathfinder (Roleplaying Game)
Genre: Lesbian Character of Color, Lesbian Sex, Multi, Non-Consensual, Non-Consensual Bondage, Rape, Tribadism, Vaginal Fingering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-10
Updated: 2018-04-10
Packaged: 2019-04-21 00:16:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 5
Words: 11,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14272686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LymneirianApparition/pseuds/LymneirianApparition
Summary: An adventuring expedition to the Darklands goes wrong and leaves Seelah the Paladin in the clutches of a truly wicked Drow Summoner. What he plans will push both her body and her faith to their limits.





	1. Chapter 1

As she sat in the cage Seelah the paladin mused that things could be worse. Being held prisoner by the infamously wicked Drow was not good to say the least. But of the two major races to occupy the shores of the underground sea of Nithran, it was the better one. Were she in the Ghouls' hands, she would already have been eaten.

In the dim glow of _Continual Light_ spells around the dungeon chamber she could see her belongings piled on a table: her plate armor, long sword, and shield, all frustratingly out of her reach. If she could just reach them it would be different. Her faith in Iomedae, goddess of justice and war, might be strong but she did not yet have access to the magic of greater paladins. Such power would make bars and prisons a mere annoyance. She could only hope that her captor – an effete Drow male who had introduced himself as Samovoth – would slip up somehow and let her get her hands on a weapon. If he kept her alive that long.

Seelah did not dwell in her imprisonment alone. Several cages away, a young Drow woman in a patterned skirt and red bodice – both stained – was likewise a captive. Seelah speculated that she enjoyed higher status as a prisoner due to being afforded the amenity of a wooden bench upon which she sat instead of merely heaps of cavern moss to sleep on. The network of tattoos on her right shoulder probably told something of the woman's station to those who knew how to read them, but Seelah did not and couldn't see them well enough from her vantage point even if she had. She knew that the woman's name was Zhamira, for while Samovoth's guards had manhandled Seelah into her cell she had heard the Drow leader address the other captive by name and order her not to talk to her. So far, in spite of all attempts by Seelah to use her rusty grasp of Elvish to communicate her with, Zhamira had obeyed this command.

The Paladin could only guess how much time had passed when the guards finally returned for her. Despite their willowy frames, the ebon-skinned Drow Elves were surprisingly strong. Her attempts to break free of their grasp and lunge for her weapons were easily subdued. The large, crescent-shaped chamber they dragged her to had the look of a wizard's laboratory, with beakers and alembics all a bubble. An immense glass window ran nearly the entire length of the room, showing an endless void of eerily-illuminated black water in which nothing swam. Seelah suppressed a shudder at the sight of it: that hopeless depth washing into her soul to tell her just how alone she truly was.

Samovoth capered in the middle of the room, practicing martial arts movements with a spear, the sharp head of which was of a metal as near-black as a Drow's skin. Her captor wore form-fitting pants, elegant boots, and a shirt whose red hue matched Zhamira's bodice. His white hair hung loosely gathered in back and strands of it whipped around his elegant face as he twirled in practice. Seelah would have found him quite dashing and handsome, if the stained table between him and the window with its heavy iron wrist cuffs and ankle stirrups hadn't indicated what he intended to do to her. 

When Seelah had been brought to stand beside the torture table the dark elf leader stopped his twirling and placed the cold point of the spear against the hollow of the paladin's throat. 

“Do you like?” he said in Common with only a trace of Drowish accent. “It's my favorite possession. Worth a fortune. The head is adamantine: the coveted metal that can pierce virtually any substance like cloth. But then again, I'm sure you know that. Speaking of cloth.”

The spear whipped around Seelah, slicing the undergarments from Seelah's body. She willed her expression to remain stoic as the cloth fell from her mahogany skin, leaving her nude before her tormentor. Samovoth's eyes prowled lustfully over her toned, muscular body and the soft bulge in the front of his breeches firmed into a lengthy rod at the sight of her full breasts and hips. Then, as though she were nothing, he turned away with a vague gesture toward the table.

It was enough command for the guards to bodily hoist Seelah up onto the grainy surface. Had the struggle gone on but a second longer she might have overwhelmed them with her superior strength. But the two of them managed to lock her wrists into the iron manacles and her ankles into the iron stirrups. Then they retreated from the room, leaving the struggling human woman alone with the Dark Elven man who now controlled every aspect of her fate.

She knew what he wanted and what would be done. Yet Seelah had no shame or fear for herself. All of her sorrow fell upon her lovers, Simoun and Channa-Ti. Were they even alive? She had gotten separated from them in the battle with the Drow soldiers that had ended with her capture. She wasn't really worried, for she know the Half-Elf Druid and the Sylph Rogue were not easy to kill. But if they ever learned of this, ever thought of her like this, it would rend their hearts. They would go mad with grief. The body that embraced them, defiled. If she survived, they could never, ever know.

While she battled these thoughts Samovoth had turned his attention to his chemicals. She could not see what he was doing, but his charming voice carried to her.

“You're quite the strong one, Lady Seelah,” he said. “No screaming or struggling. No proud defiance, saying you'll never talk, or whatever. That's a rare quality. I like that.”

“I won't scream or struggle because you don't scare me. And we both already know I won't talk, because you didn't bring me here to talk to me.”

She could hear the grin in his voice. “So you understand, then? In fact, it almost sounds like you want it.”

What she wanted was Channa-Ti. In her mind, the dark-skinned Druid lay upon her. Long, brown fingers played upon Seelah's many muscles and Channa's perfect lips sucked her nipples to hardness. Seelah locked her mind on that. Being with her lovers, someplace else, was the only way she would get through this.

The door Seelah had been brought in from opened again. She could just see a guard enter, accompanying the Drow woman from the cage. He left, but she remained and approached when Samovoth bid her. He drew near the table now. He held what looked like a rubber-tipped syringe in his hand. As he approached Seelah his other hand brushed tenderly through Zhamira's silky white hair. The dark Elf girl wearily accepted the touch, looking resigned to being there.

Seelah could not fully restrain from flinching as the syringe was inserted without preamble into her rectum. Samovoth applied gentle, constant pressure to the instrument, irrigating a cold, queasy fluid into the empty cavity.

“Now this will feel cold at first, but then it will feel very, very warm. A lubrication of my own design that will make what's to follow more pleasurable for all parties involved.”

“So you're going to fuck me in the ass, then?” Seelah shouted, defiant. “Do it, then. I've been fucked in the ass before. I can take it.”

Specifically, Channa-Ti had fucked her in the ass with her beautiful hands. Her record so far with Seelah was getting two-and-a-half fingers up the human woman's anus. The Druid vowed she would make it three, however. And then four. She was still shy and embarrassed at enjoying such unorthodox and intense touches. Fortunately, Iomedae's code for her paladins did not say anything against enjoying anal fisting...

“Clearly you can. The thought of it has already gotten you all wet and excited.”

Samovoth fingered the purple-pink channel between her labia. He then smelled his finger, luxuriating in the pungency of her wetness.

“But you grieve me,” he continued. “I'm not going to fuck you in the ass, or anywhere else. For that would be mere pleasure. Why do that when I can fuck you with the very embodiment of my will? This is art we are making together, Seelah. Watch and see.”

The Drow made a gesture and a rune of arcane energy appeared on his forehead. Behind him a ripple of energy the same color as the rune formed an aperture in the air itself. Seelah watched in fascinated horror as a creature resembling a giant centipede scuttled out of it. Its chitinous purple-black segments were too sleek to be merely insectile. Its multifaceted eyes too intelligent for it to be merely a beast. An identical rune glowed upon its forehead, but one did not need to see it to feel the bond between Summoner and servant; to sense that together they formed one purpose and one soul.

“Meet Avendisch,” Samovoth explained. “I formed him from the soul-stuff of the very Abyss. Do you understand, Paladin? It is evil made flesh that will love you! Your purity and his corruption together in the ultimate act of lovemaking! I don't know why you came down here to the Darklands. But it isn't important. Thank you. Thank you for coming here and making this possible for us.”

Samovoth opened the front of his trousers and out sprung a hairless, curving cock some nine inches in length. Zhamira knelt before him and freed her large, black-nippled breasts from her bodice before taking the Summoner's organ into her mouth. He closed his eyes and let the rapture have him for a long moment before he simply said “Avendisch.”

The centipede demon rose on its last sets of legs and towered over the captive Seelah. Only now could she see the sphincters opening along its underbelly, one on each section. Out of each orifice emerged a long, pale, humanoid cock with massive balls. She watched in horror as they inflated erect. There most of been a dozen in all. 

The lube in her ass had indeed grown very warm and Seelah was oddly comforted by it. Then Avendisch fell upon her and began forcing cocks into her every way it could. Her pussy and ass were violated simultaneously, but she could not cry out for the fleshy cock filling up her mouth. How could she remain a Paladin if a demon had her? Worse still, she was enjoying it. She was enjoying it because she was lost in the memory of herself, Channa-Ti, and Simoun, and a man the three of them had shared one night just for the fun of doing so. 

It had all been in the spirit of spreading love and making people feel good, and those were the emotions you came back to when a demonic centipede crushed you under its bulk, choked you with a massive cock, and stretched your pussy and ass almost to their breaking points. Beside them, Samovoth now earnestly fucked the mouth and groped the tits of his slave girl.

Fortunately, Avendisch did not last long. Unfortunately, neither did Seelah. She did not dare imagine the nature of the fluids now splashing in her womb and rectum but she was cumming on account of them regardless. The plentiful, oily spunk pouring down her throat was nauseating, yet she drank it greedily just the same. The ordeal left poor Seelah gasping and ashamed as the flopping, leaking cocks withdrew from her embarrassingly stretched holes. She tried to retreat into warm thoughts of Simoun and Channa-Ti but then the awful revelation was upon her: there were nine more cocks to go.

The creature shared Samovoth's cruel imagination. By the time beast's final set of cocks made use of Seelah's openings she had been fucked in humiliating ways she had never imagined and she had made herself love every minute of it. She loved her holes uncontrollably leaking fluid. She loved every pool and rivulet of demon cum smeared across well-toned body. 

She loved it because it was better than the alternative.

Samovoth, meanwhile, continued to enjoy his blowjob, cupping Zhamira's face and staring longingly into her white eyes as she serviced him. As Avendisch reached climax for the last time, Samovoth took on the same cadence as he fucked the slave girl's warm mouth.

_“Thank you... Seelah... for letting me... HUMILIATE you... It's the... only... way that... I... can... get... OFF!”_

And get off he did, ejaculating copiously into his prisoner's mouth. So much so that Zhamira could barely swallow it. But Samovoth cupped her cheeks in his hand and spat into her mouth to make up for what had splashed down onto her breasts.

When the ordeal had ended, Samovoth lovingly washed the dazed Paladin's body while she lay gasping and silent. Fresh cloth garments were placed upon her torso and she and Zhamira were escorted separately back to their cells. Once left alone there, the Drow resumed her silent vigil and this time, Seelah made no effort to engage her.


	2. Rise From Darkness, part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seelah finds comfort with her fellow captive, Zhamira. But does a reprieve from torment hold the possibility of escape?

With no day and night to guide her, Seelah had no idea how long her ordeal went on. All she could do was count the humiliation sessions as they happened. By the end of the fourth one she had to resort to using her divine gifts to heal the soreness threatening to overwhelm her. But her faith was more battered and bruised than her body. She could feel her connection to her goddess growing tenuous and fleeting. Every Paladin's terror was upon her. She was about to Fall, to lose her faith and the powers it brought. How many more sessions with Samovoth and his demonic eidolon could she endure before she gave herself fully to demonic perversion? One? Maybe two? Her gear still lay on the table a few meters away, as distant as another continent. If she had it, at least she could die fighting in Iomedae's name.

Channa-Ti and Simoun would never know what happened to her. But at least she would still die with her heart loyal to them.

She was rattled from her dazed fantasies by the lock on her cage releasing. Seelah looked up to see Zhamira entering her cell.

“What are you doing? How did you...?”

Zhamira tucked her feet beneath her and sat across from Seelah, shushing her. “He will not be pleased if he finds out. But I am tired of us not knowing each other when we see each other at our most vulnerable every day.”

It was the first time Seelah had heard the Drow woman speak. She possessed a beautiful, dusky voice that perfectly complimented her comely form. But Seelah had no time to muse upon the woman's perfection. “If you can pick locks then why are you still here? I thought men submitted to women in Drow society so why are you here and under the control of Samovoth in the first place?”

“A man whose House successful destroys another House can do what he wants with whatever women survivors that he finds. I don't escape because I have nowhere to go. Neither do you.”

She placed her hand upon Seelah's bare thigh.

“But that does not mean we have to be alone.”

The gentle contact of her fingers was like the first drink of fresh water after suffering in a desert and Seelah's body responded unbidden. Zhamira's hands looked and felt so much like Channa-Ti's and responses that had become automatic triggered within her.

“Feels like we know each other, doesn't it?” the falling Paladin said with a slight smile.

“Yes it does. I pay attention to you. During. Anything to avoid paying attention to him. I know you love someone else. I know that in your mind you are with them while it is happening. If you wanted, I could be them for a little while. It would be something we have of each other that he doesn't.”

Her hand crept up Seelah's thigh, fingertips sliding under the opening of the loose Drow undergarment that she wore. 

“And it would feel good.”

“And why does a Drow want to make a human feel good?”

“Because he would not want me to. Is that not reason enough?”

As Seelah pondered Zhamira's words she felt something through her flickering bond to Iomedae. Not exactly permission, but understanding. The Inheritor was a goddess of war who knew that in war regretful measures must sometimes be allowed.

_Channa-Ti. Simoun. Forgive me._

She began to touch Zhamira's body. The dark Elf immediately opened her bodice, letting her lovely big breasts plop out. Her jet black nipples puffed like Seelah's own and the latter could not resist immediately sucking them, which sent the surprised Drow gasping with delight. They toppled into the moss together, Zhamira yanking off her skirt and Seelah shucking her undergarments.

“This has to be fast,” the Drow whispered against the storm of Seelah's kisses. “You know they can come for us at any time. How do you like to do it? Fingers? Mouth?”

Against the goosepimpled black flesh of the Drow's neck, Seelah gasped, “Tribadism.”

“What? I'm afraid I don't know what that is.”

“It does what you said you wanted. It makes us feel good.”

The curious Drow allowed the Paladin to position her on her back and squat between her legs. She watched amazed Seelah expertly pressed her own dark, prominent clit against Zhamira's darker and more diminutive one. Before Zhamira could even properly appreciate the sensation, Seelah began to fuck her; their pussies literally kissing and their wet clits gliding together like lovers' tongues.

“That feels... Oh my! _Oh my! Seelah!”_

Zhamira had to bite her own forearm to keep from crying out. The orgasms they shared – and there were several – were liberating and loving. So different from the hellish, wicked climaxes they experienced with their captors. And they escalated. Each woman knew they were reaching the end and Zhamira had gotten the hang of it by then, grasping firmly onto Seelah's hips to guide her as the bigger woman power-fucked her into a shared orgasm so mighty that for a few seconds, each woman was the only thing in the other's world. Seelah sat catching her breath in the aftermath, pleased with herself. But that's when outside sensations returned and she noticed pain where the girl still gripped her and blood leaking from where Zhamira's fingers made contact. Her lover held up hands grown hideous and muscular. Long, slashing talons now extended from her fingertips.

“Oh my! I'm sorry. I've never had them manifest like that without me meaning to. I guess I'm not used to just giving up control like that and letting myself go.”

Zhamira's claws retracted and her hands resumed their normal form but Seelah was having none of it. She retreated as far as the bars of the cage would let her and crouched, ready to pounce if need be.

“What are you?”

“I'm a woman,” the Drow huffed indignantly, stuffing herself back into her bodice. “One that has been enduring the eidolon's affections far longer than you have. I don't know exactly what happened, but I think that long-term exposure to its various fluids has caused my body to change somehow; acquire certain Abyssal adaptations. 

“There are other manifestations as well. Namely that I just seem to know how to cast certain spells without ever having studied them. Samovoth doesn't know about any of it. It's the only secret I have been able to keep from him.”

“Inheritor's blade,” Seelah gasped, wide-eyed. “You're a Sorceress!”

“So it would seem.”

“But that gives you incredible power! Why haven't you used it against him? Why don't you kill him?”

Now Zhamira looked downright annoyed. “Because he's never alone. Or haven't you noticed? And I am nowhere near as powerful as I think you are hoping. Certainly not powerful enough to think I could strike him down before he summoned the eidolon. Once Avendisch shows up the fight would be over.”

Seelah nodded. “If I were to face them I might have the same problem. But both of us together--”

“No. You think he's not expecting you to try and kill him? He would love for you to try. It fuels his fantasies; gives him a reason to punish you more. Why else do you think he just left your weapons there within arm's reach? I know. I've seen him do it before. You're not the first warrior woman he's held prisoner. No, this is your world now. I was hoping that by showing you what small pleasures we can have together that you might accept it faster. Because to not do so? That only ends one way.

“I hate this existence. But not enough to be willing to die trying to escape it.”

“I respect your choice,” Seelah replied, not unsympathetically. “You have a right to make it and I cannot force you to do otherwise. But either way, here's your problem: we can't be found in this cage together. You can't let Samovoth discover that you know how to get out.”

She raised her finger toward the lock above her shoulder. “The only way for you to avoid that is for you to open this door, and when you do, I'm going for my weapons and armor. I won't let you stop me.

“Don't worry. I won't put you in danger. If it goes badly – which it probably will – I won't tell him about any of your secrets. But whether I succeed or fail you will have lost your last chance of ever getting out of here. Your last hope dies with me, Zhamira. But only if you let it.”

Zhamira looked to the Paladin like she wanted to believe, but years of despair and grief would not let her. 

“We are below the surface of the lake, but above us on the shore is a settlement with hundreds of Drow, and a Drow without a House is nothing. _I am_ nothing. Escaping from Samovoth wouldn't matter for me. I'd be someone else's property within an hour. I have nowhere to go.”

“We pull this off and you can travel with me. But you have to open this door!”

“I heard that my kind are hunted on the surface, just as yours is down here.”

“One problem at a time!” urged the impatient Seelah. “Now open the door before we're really fucked!”

Clearly not yet convinced, but seeing the truth in Seelahs' words all the same, Zhamira rose and approached the cage door while Seelah put her meager garments back on. The Paladin had to admire the Sorceress's ingenuity, for her crude lockpick had been improvised from a length of metal corset boning. It did the job well enough, and the door of Seelah's prison swung free.

The human warrior wasted no time, bounding to her armaments like she was greeting a lifelong friend. Her joy did not last, however. For at that moment, the door of the room opened and one of the guards walked in.

For an instant, all parties gaped at each other in mute shock. Then, with a curse, the guard dropped the food and fresh water he had been bringing for the prisoners. In one swift movement he produced, loaded, and fired a hand crossbow. The tiny bolt whined like a mosquito on its trajectory to Seelah's heart.

The might of the Inheritor flared to life in the Paladin's breast. Perhaps the renewal of her faith opened greater vistas inside her. Perhaps she had merely seen and experienced enough hardship that her goddess felt a reward in order. Either way, she could touch the goddess's power in new ways; her bond stronger in spite of her submission to temptation. The magic gifts – so hard-earned by warriors of her kind – awakened and Seelah seized upon them by instinct. Holy power surrounded her, took on form, and manifested in the form of a suit of fine chainmail armor encasing her from head to toe. The bolt caught harmless in the mail's links before Seelah crushed it in a gauntleted fist.

Zhamira put her power to use too. With a gesture, the ironbound door of fungal wood swung closed behind the guard. It did not lock, but now the sounds of violence had far less chance of attracting further guards. The male Drow tried to reach it and fling it open again to call upon his fellows. But Seelah was faster, her longsword cleaving down upon him. His uniform of sculpted leather and a steel cap looked impressive, but afforded nowhere near the protection of Seelah's conjured mail and so the fight was over in seconds.

As impressive as Seelah's newfound power had been, it did not last. Zhamira took the dead guard's handcrossbow and bolts along with his curved belt knife and guarded the door while Seelah dismissed the conjured chainmail and donned her suit of plate: a laboriously slow process. The errand the guard had come on was not a time-consuming was and he would be missed very quickly. Once dressed, she voiced this concern to her companion but Zhamira was not worry.

“There's another way to get to the lab besides the one they take you on. We go that way, we run the risk of fewer guards.”

“Lead the way,” Seelah said quickly, which Zhamira greeted with a rueful chuckle.

“What's so funny?”

“You just trusting me like this. In our culture trust is a weakness. A Drow always expects betrayal.”

“Should I?”

“I already told you. I don't want to die while trying to escape from here.”

Seelah followed her out the door and onto an unfamiliar route. But she did not follow as closely as she once might have. Zhamira's remark had been meant to reassure her, then it had kind of backfired.

\---


	3. Rise From Darkness, part 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seelah and Zhamira navigate Samovoth's fortress.

Zhamira led them through a network of subterranean apartments belonging to over members of Samovoth's household. She explained to Seelah that it must be what the Drow considered daytime hours and hence most of the occupants were out on business in the town above. They did encounter two guards they took by surprise, but Zhamira incinerated them with a torrent of fire from her hands. Seelah had seen such magics before but the Drow soldiers' natural resistance to magic made it more work and an altogether more unpleasant thing to watch. Zhamira handled the work without a hint of undue sadism. But something about the way it all went down made Seelah insist on taking the lead from that point on.

Their next encounter was with a Drow woman whose tattered garments marked her, too, as one of Samovoth's captives. Seelah tried to reassure her they meant no harm, but at the sight of Zhamira the woman's face twisted with rage and she lunged at her fellow Drow, shrieking and rending at her with her nails. Seelah had no wish to harm a fellow prisoner, but there was no reasoning with her and Seelah was forced to club her unconscious with her metal gauntlet.

“I certainly wasn't expecting to find her here,” Zhamira said as she looked down at the senseless slave. Seelah noted that she too bore tattoos down her right arm, as Zhamira did, but with different sigils.

“Who is she? Why did she attack us?”

“Her name is Kemoyra. Her House was also a rival of mine. But it looks like in the end Samovoth's family overcame them too.”

Seelah eyed her askance. “The way your people fight among themselves is utterly insane. Do you know that?”

Zhamira stared back at her unfazed. “You have no idea.”

They moved steadily upward. Before they reached the lab they came upon a room where a lone male Drow sat tuning a lute. With a curse, he draw a rapier and lunged at them. But Zhamira prevented him from reaching them. A salvo of arcane missiles shot from her upraised hand and slammed into his chest, sending him staggering. Seelah stepped up and swung her longsword to slash his throat and prevent him from crying out.

She missed. What happened was her sword sheared through the corner of his jaw, leaving his mandible hanging askew and his tongue lolling rootless. The blade also bit deeply into his brain stem, saving him from suffering and silencing him all the same.

“You'll do more charming with that face, Aksinvar,” Zhamira gloated to the corpse. “But I like you better this way.”

“He was a bad person, I take it?”

“A liar, a swindler, and rapist. So by your peoples' standards, yes, very bad. By ours? About average. As a Bard he had a passing talent for summoning monsters and Samovoth kept him around to have someone with whom to discuss the philosophies of conjuration.”

Seelah wiped his blood from her sword. “If he was a rapist then why haven't we seen him before?”

“He preferred men. Why are you smiling?”

“The way you say things. You remind me of my friend Channa-Ti. I think you'll like her if we live long enough to meet her.”

“Does she speak her mind and take satisfaction in killing those who cross her?”

“Yes she does. And she grows claws, too.”

Zhamira, who had stooped to claim Aksinvar's rapier as her own now looked back over her shoulder. “Really?”

Seelah shrugged. “Well, she uses magic to change into lions and the like.”

“Lions?”

“Big predators who live on the surface above. They use their claws to kill.”

Zhamira smiled. “I like her already. After all, claws are claws.”

“I should probably warn you, though, that she has surface Elf blood.”

To her surprise, the Drow – whose race's hatred for their surface-dwelling cousins was the stuff of legend – smiled back at her kindly. “Well, nobody's perfect.”

Seelah fell in line behind her, but felt the other woman's expression without even seeing it. “Now why are _you_ smiling?”

“Just the fact that you have a type.”

“What? No I don't. How many lesbian relationships do you think I've had?”

Zhamira snickered as they traversed the stone corridors. “Elves. Magic. Even claws? You have a type.”

Seelah clanked to a halt behind her, flummoxed. “I... Inheritor's blade, I _do_ have a type.”

“Are you coming?” Zhamira asked as she rounded a corner. But then she stuck her head back into view, her eyebrow coyly raised. “Because thinking about the kind of women you like will do that.”

She laughed and Seelah huffed along to catch up. Behind them a fly landed on Aksinvar's lifeless face.

\---


	4. Rise From Darkness, part 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seelah and Zhamira confront their tormentor.

Zhamira discouraged contact with guards and other occupants from that point onward. Seelah was forced to depend upon the demon-tainted Drow. In her loud, unwieldy plate armor she would wait behind while the nimble Sorceress ranged ahead. Each time, however, the woman from a society built on treachery proved faithful and returned to bring the armored warrior onward. The strategy got them to a blank, curving wall in an unassuming corridor. Zhamira swore that the wall contained a secret entryway into the lab. Seelah did not care for having succeeded at covert movement for so long only to stand exposed in the corridor while her companion prodded various stones looking for the false one. But it did make her feel useful getting to stand guard. 

“Zhamira, what makes you so certain there's a door here?” she finally asked when it seemed like their luck could not possibly hold for one second longer.

“No Drow lives to attain any degree of station without having a secret bolt hole out of his or her lair. His is built into the floor, right by the table where you've spent so much time recently.”

“That doesn't answer my question,” Seelah noted, watching how Zhamira crept from one section of wall to another, grasping at stones seemingly at random. “How do you know that this is where it comes out at?”

“Samovoth uses me for a lot of things. Not just sex. It took years, but gradually I've seen almost every inch of this complex. It's easy to become careless around someone you've broken; show them things you wouldn't want your closest friends to know, let alone your enemies.”

“Things like where your secret passageways are?”

“Exactly.” Zhamira cocked a silvery eyebrow as she looked at Seelah. “Why? Were you thinking I might be stalling here until someone comes along and I could then barter you to gain their favor?”

Seelah had not expected such a direct question from the wily Drow. She thought about her answer. Her precarious relationship with the goddess Iomedae would not be improved by lying. But she could still use her words diplomatically.

“Much has been taken from me the last few days and the thought of escaping has seemed too good to be true. It is difficult to trust and believe.”

Zhamira nodded sympathetically. “I understand that.”

Not much more time passed before she found the false stone that she thought. Zhamira exclaimed with glee when one of the stones popped loose in her hand revealing a brass key plate underneath.

“That mechanism looks solid,” Seelah intoned from behind her. “Do you think your homemade lockpick is up to the task?”

“Certainly not.” Zhamira smugly plucked a ring of keys out of her bodice, the longest held suspended between her slender fingers. “But the master key the guard in the cell block was carrying probably will.”

She turned the key in the lock and the section of wall slid away. When Seelah had followed her companion into the dark she was alarmed by the hidden door abruptly sliding back into place behind her.

“Did you do that?”

“I was trying,” replied Zhamira from the darkness ahead. “It was too heavy for my cantrip of closing, but then it slid back into place on its own. He must have it on some kind of timer.”

Seelah found the mechanism of the door less interesting than how the door's closing left her utterly blind. The continual light spells ubiquitous throughout Samovoth's lair had made her forget that Drow could see perfectly in the dark. Her sense of claustrophobia must have been palpable, for Zhamira detected it instantly.

“You can't see anything, can you? You have no idea how fascinating that is for us. We have no idea what it is like to not be able to see in the darkness. To be able to walk right up to someone that you can see clearly, but they can't see you at all. It is an intoxicating sense of power. Perhaps it explains much about why we feel such a sense of superiority over the races who dwell in the lands above.”

Seelah might not be able to see but the sword in her hand was solid, real, and as deadly as ever.

“If you're saying that now is the time you're choosing to turn on me, I wouldn't advise that at all.”

Zhamira sounded genuinely hurt. 

“I guess I need to work on my phrasing then, because that's not where I was going at all. What I was actually hoping... Oh, this is hard to admit and embarrassing to ask for. But I was hoping you might take me one more time, here in the darkness, before we go up and face Samovoth once and for all.”

“Zhamira, how can you think about that right now?”

The Drow female spoke like she should be stating the obvious; passion running deep in the syllables of the Elven language in which she spoke.

“Because I'm nervous and scared. I do not know if I am even strong enough to face Samovoth and Avendisch, let alone defeat them in combat. I have been his slave for so long I can barely remember a life without him. Being with you was the first time I've felt good in probably longer than you have been alive. And if I am going to do this... Well, I guess I just want it fresh in my mind when I die that I was with someone I chose, and that my body was truly my own again.”

The words touched Seelah, but not to where practicality left her. 

“If we wait until after we've won, then your body will feel more your own than ever. Besides, time is a factor and full plate armor takes a long time to get in and out of.”

“Oh,” said the crestfallen Zhamira. “Then I guess there was no point in doing this then.”

A half dozen pale orbs of light winked into existence, illuminating the small stretch of the tunnel that they shared. They swirled around Zhamira's body, revealing her to be perfectly nude. Her grey-black skin shown violet in their dim light. Nipples the color of blackberries glistened hotly in erect invitation.

“I...” The flustered Paladin struggled to chastise her companion's impetuousness, but could only stammer. “We don't have time...”

Then, before she knew it the two of them had gravitated into each other's embrace, their dusky-hued mouths pressing hotly together. Seelah got aggressive, leaving even darker marks on Zhamira's purple-black neck with her kisses when a twinge hit her nostrils.

“I can smell you,” she gasped. “Do I really turn you on that much?”

“You have no fucking idea!” the Drow groaned. “I've hated watching that thing fuck you. Hated that it wasn't me!”

“I wish it had been you too.”

“Gods, I can't wait to kill that fucking bug!”

Depsite agreeing vehemently, Seelah could not stray from the task before her. Still too flustered to express herself properly, she could only thrust her armored fist at her lover and impatiently demand, “Gauntlet!”

Zhamira awkardly unbound the steel glove from the Paladin's hand. It clattered satisfyingly to the floor of the tunnel. They didn't stop to wonder if anyone in the chamber above heard them and did not care because Seelah's fingers found Zhamira's slick, acrid pussy and slid right up inside it, instantly finding the nodule that was like a second clit deep within.

“Hnnn!” Zhamira screamed through closed lips, locking her arms around the Paladin's armored shell. She didn't care at all about the bits of metal digging into her soft body. The sensation of Seelah's strong, sure hand inside her blurred all other sensation out. She held on for dear life and let the human woman have her like that, right up against the cave wall. She wanted to lavish Seelah with professions of love, fidelity, possessiveness. Each statement failed, overcome by another teeth-clenched cry. In the end, she could only strain out one Elvish word: a beautiful word that, like so many words in the Elven language has many different meanings. But in this context, it's intent was unmistakably clear.

“Coming!”

She only said the word once. But the event it portended actually happened five times in rapid, exhausting succession. Zhamira's legs, so long and strong, wobbled like jelly underneath her and she sank to the smooth stone floor. 

“I know we need to go. Just need a minute.”

Seelah stooped to retrieve her gauntlet and put it back on in the ghostly light. “I wish we had more than that.”

“Seelah, if we don't make it, I...” 

The words failed her. For they are words that Drow, in their hard, cruel society, are not given to say. Weak words in a world where weakness is death. She could only look at the human's proud, dark face and hope that her wide pale eyes spoke all. They must have.

“I know,” the Paladin said. Zhamira dressed and they moved on.

Not far from where they trysted the narrow passage grew incredibly steep. The two women were nearly on all fours by the time it ended at a heavy trap door of fungal wood. Zhamira had to contort slightly to get it open, and Seelah tensed at the slight sound of it opening. But the hinges were quite well oiled and it made no noise as the Drow opened it enough to let sounds from the laboratory drift in.  
“Be careful,” Seelah hissed as Zhamira peeked through the slim opening. “He'll see you.”

“He won't. He's entertaining a couple of his lady friends.”

Sure enough, feminine giggles fawning in response to Samovoth's smooth voice crossed the Paladin's ears.

“Funny story! True story! The priestess had no idea we'd been there. Didn't have a clue. Of course she'd have scourged all the flesh off our backs if she had and I wouldn't be here to tell the story. So obviously she was never any the wiser...”

The women tittered brainlessly again. Seelah didn't know what she'd expected Drow to be like when they weren't actively killing and abusing, but she hadn't expected to find the same kind of vapid socialites that existed everywhere else.

“Who are they?”

“Doesn't matter,” Zhamira whispered without taking her eyes out of the gap. “Merchants' daughters, most likely. Just the type to be impressed by a little attention from a minor nobleman. All I can see are their feet, but they're leaning against the main lab table real casual. Looks like just him and two women. Probably drinking. I'm sure he's planning to fuck them.”

“Good! We'll wait until they start, then rush him while he's naked and defenseless.”

But in the meager light Seelah could see Zhamira's hand by her side, inches, from Seelah's eyes. She watched the fingers lengthen, grow demonic; watched as the nails hardened and extended into points.

“Zhamira, no! Stop! Wait until he's compromised!”

“No good,” the Drow woman hissed in a voice as hard as her nails. “Our disappearance could be reported to him any second and we'll lose our chance. Besides, you heard what he said. On your very first visit to the lab. He can't get off without Avendisch there helping. If he summons that beast we're dead. It has to be now!”

Seelah caught a fistful of Zhamira's skirt in her metal-encased fingers. “But what about those girls?”

Zhamira's eyes flashed back at her in the dark. “What about them?”

“We can't hurt them.”

“Why not?”

“They haven't done anything to us! They're innocent!”

“Innocent? That's a thing that only exists on the surface if it exists anywhere at all? Nobody down here is.”

“Did you hear something?” asked a female voice from above. Footsteps moved toward their location, followed by the Drow woman's lighthearted laugh. 

“What's this? Samovoth, why do you have a door in the floor?”

Zhamira angrily yanked her skirt from Seelah's grasp. “Shit!”

Seelah could not stop her. The trap door seemed to blast open – likely aided by one of Zhamira's cantrips – and the Sorceress exploded out of it. The Paladin dragged her armored bulk through at remarkable speed, but still was not in time to do anything but watch helpless as Zhamira ripped the stunned woman's throat open with a hateful shriek.

“Zhamira, no!”

The Drow did not heed her. She barreled toward her fellow Drow to continue the assault. Samovoth grabbed the remaining, frightened woman and shoved her at Zhamira. The sorceress could have harmlessly knocked her aside, but chose instead to drive her claws so deep into the woman's belly she was able to lift her by the bottom of her rib cage while simultaneously driving a clawed thumb through the victim's trachea.

Zhamira hurled the dying woman at Samovoth, knocking him to the floor before he could run two steps. The wily Summoner would not succumb easily, however. He reached up and snatched one of the wine glasses he and his company had been enjoying from off the edge of the table and threw it perfectly. It smashed into shards right in the spot where Zhamira's bare foot landed a fraction of a second later. The lacerated appendage gave out under its owner's weight and Zhamira landed in a heap as Samovoth bounded back up.

With no time to spare for the murdered women, Seelah charged for her tormentor, but he was faster. He produced the adamantine spear from Seelah knew not where and seized a fistful of Xhamira's hair, dragging her up enough to lay the blade that could pierce anything against the hollow of her throat.

“I knew this would happened,” he snarled with glee as Seelah halted and Zhamira retracted her demonic claws. “I knew you bitches would get out! Maybe that's why I put you two close together, because deep down, I wanted you bitches to get out! So I could fuck you in ways I haven't before!”

He glanced at the lifeless forms of the women he had been so happily courting moments before. 

“Granted, I hadn't planned on it happening before I'd gotten to watch Avendisch fuck new holes into these two bitches. But he still can. I just won't get to enjoy their reactions as much. Wait, what am I talking about? Of course I can! I have just the thing.”

Samovoth spoke something insidious and arcane while releasing Zhamira's hair to gesticulate. The spear point still pressing on her throat, she dared not move. 

Seelah watched as a black wand lifted from a rack on the wall and floated through the air to hover before Zamira.

“Take it,” he urged, and she had no choice but to comply.

“The spell bound in this wand takes extra work for someone like me. But you, Zhamira: you seem to have developed talents when I wasn't looking that I think will make its manipulation quite easy for you. Defy me, and this blade will slice through you as though you were nothing more than the water beyond that glass wall.”

“Do it and I'll kill you!” the Paladin spat.

“She will,” Zhamira confirmed. “But a lot of good that will do me. I'm sorry, Seelah.”

With the adamantine spear never far from ending her life, Zhamira leaned over and tapped the corpse of the Drow that lay nearby. It groaned and sat up, its eyes still glazed over in death, but now very much possessed of a new and terrible hunger.

“Stop it!” Seelah bellowed. “Stop it right now!” 

Samovoth looked up at her and grinned, the summoning rune blazing on his forehead. The creation of the zombie had merely been a distraction.

Seelah turned and skidded out of the way just as Avendisch burst into existence and attempted to trample her beneath its many legs. Her sword struck sparks off the eidolon's side but could not penetrate its chitinous armor. In her peripheral vision she saw Zhamira flung like a ragdoll by her tormentor, the spear tip poking the back of her neck. The Drow reached out with the wand and touched it upon the other corpse. It too groaned into a mockery of life. 

Zhamira's only chance at freedom melted before her eyes. Seelah battled fiercely against the centipede eidolon. But the repugnant demon shaped by Samovoth's will was quick and powerful, and the days of fatigue and abuse still weighed upon the Paladin. The demon was trying to end the fight quickly, keeping its quarry on the defensive. Seelah just barely kept its coils from encircling her, but could not mount the offense she needed.

“What are you going to do now?” she spat at Samovoth as the undead slavered around her. “You going to make me suck you off again while you just stand there and watch?”

He pointed at the zombie women with his spear. “They were supposed to suck me off. But you had to go and play with them first. So now you get to keep right on playing. Have fun, Zhamira. It's been nice.”

He patted her cheek, took the wand out of her hand, and gave her a good, swift kick to the mid-section as the zombies closed on top of her to feast upon her flesh.

Samovoth turned to find Seelah neatly wrapped in his eidolon's coils. The paladin had called upon her goddess to smite the blasphemous thing, but it had not quite been enough. Her sword lay on the floor beyond the reach of her one free arm, strain for it though she might. Avendisch's great, slavering head loomed behind her own, awaiting command from its master.

“Don't worry,” the Drown man said as he used the adamantine spear to carve a slice of metal off of Seelah's steal pauldron. “I'll stop them before they get carried away. I'll make sure there's still enough left of Zhamira to fuck. In fact, she will be even better because she will have so many new holes for Avendisch to enjoy. You will too. 

“I didn't expect for this to be our last time together, Seelah. But it's going to be a night to remember. And then I'll bring your broken body back to remember it again. And again.”

A rain of drool landed on the damaged pauldron as Avendisch leaned over Seelah to gloat. But her loathing quickly turned to a look of violent determination.

“You might give us new holes, Summoner. But good luck trying to enjoy them!”

Seelah's free arm shot upward, connecting with the nearest sphincter on the eidolon's underbelly. Still empowered to smite the demon construct, the sharp metal tour through the suckered flesh with ease. Now wrist-deep in the monstrosity, she grunted and yanked with all her might. Her grunt turned into a howl as she yanked, and yanked again.

It all happened in seconds. Samovoth could not move in time to stop her. Green ichor poured out in a torrent as Seelah's mailed fist ripped free, tearing out the oversized penis and testicles from within the ruptured orifice. Ichor showered Samovoth as she flung the heap of flesh at him and Avendisch's coils fell slack as it flailed in useless agony. Then, with agility born of holy fury she tumbled and retrieved her longsword, spinning on her heel to drive it into the bleeding hole she had made in the beast. With Iomedae lending strength to her tired limbs she heaved, tearing the blade upward through insect meat. Avendisch's head split in half as the blade tore out the top of it.

 

“AVENDISCH!”

With the sundered eidolon thrashing its death throes and bubbling out of existence, Seelah spun to see its maker coming at her with his spear raised, only to have his vengeance cut short by the weapon being yanked out of his grip from behind. He whirled in confusion to see Zhamira leveling the spear at his belly, the two undead women standing docile at her sides.

“What do you think I was doing down there in that cage for all these years?” Zhamira shouted. “I learned to speak with the dead! Gods know you've made enough of them!”

With that she rammed the spear into his belly. Doubling over in pain and disbelief, Samovoth bubbled out a pathetic “no...” as the zombies lurched forth and seized him, their eager teeth tearing into his face and neck.

Zhamira leaned upon the spear as she watched the dead feast, keeping the weight off of her bleeding, mangled right foot. Seelah scanned her face for any hint of satisfaction or regret alike. But there was nothing; no discernible emotion of any kind while her captor twitched his last at her feet.

“I have to end it.”

Zhamira nodded and her face still did not change. Nor did it as the Paladin beheaded undead and victim alike.


	5. Rise From Darkness, part 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the aftermath of the confrontation, new problems arise.

The Drow sorceress gasped as holy force flooded her body. The shredded flesh and tendons of her right foot knitted back together as good as new in the time it took her to take one good, deep breath. Seelah the Paladin released the foot from her mailed hands as the golden nimbus surrounding them subsided. Zhamira flexed her toes in amazement at the healing her companion had wrought.

“When our priestesses heal, it's casting a spell. But you do it like the power is a part of you.”

“Because it's not casting a spell. The power is a part of me.”

The Drow looked at her hands, still bloody from the women she had slain with them thanks to the claws which she had the power to grow.

“I suppose it's too late for me to learn the kind of faith that makes that possible, what with the things I've done and the fact that Samovoth's experiments have made me part demon.”

Seelah smiled, weary but confident. “It's never too late. He's gone and you're free now. You can come with me. Be whatever you want. Iomedae had a plan for bringing us together. If you decide to follow it further, who knows what you might discover you can become?”

Zhamira leaned forward and touched her lover's steel-covered hand. “One problem at a time. Defeating Samovoth was one thing, but we haven't escaped yet.”

“Agreed. Since you finally let me treat that slashed up foot, go ahead and show me what you inventoried while you insisted on hobbling around on it.”

They'd found a bag into which they'd stuffed anything in Samovoth's lab that looked like it might be of use. Zhamira dragged it over to where she sat and pulled out two small bottles of blue fluid and a wand crafted from preserved and tooled fungal fiber.

“I didn't get a lot of practice identifying magical items while I was living in the cell. Most of this is beyond my skill and will take some time. But minus the wand of Animate Dead which you so pointedly snapped in half--”

She glared at Seelah with a raised eyebrow.

“--I was able to identify these. Two potions of _Water Breathing_ – useful for someone who lives underneath a lake, I suppose – and a wand of _Ant Haul._ ”

Seelah blinked. “Ant hall? What does it do? Build ant hives?”

“Not 'ant hall,' ant haul. Gives you the ability to carry far weight than you normally could, the way an ant does. About half of its charges have been used. He probably was casting it on Avendisch whenever he needed heavy lifting done.”

“Not the most useless thing we could have found,” Seelah said. She accepted one of the breathing potions from Zhamira before the latter put everything back in the bag. “None of it holds a candle to the adamantine spear, though.”

Zhamira hefted the weapon across her lap before using it as a lever to stand, slinging the bag over her shoulder as she did so.

“A weapon that can pierce almost anything hard to surpass. Although I'd be grateful to get out of here without having to put it to use again. There are still hundreds of Drow in this complex and more in the town above. I don't see how we'll avoid them all.”

“Like you said, one problem at a time. If we go back down the trap door and keep taking the back way through the complex like we were, do you think that will minimalize our chances of confrontation?”

“Maybe. Seelah... What you said about your Iomedae having a plan for us meeting, do you really believe that? Do you believe it in spite of everything that's happened down here? Everything that we've done and has been done to us?”

The Paladin relaxed in the weight of her armor and the Inheritor's badge upon her breast and could feel herself becoming truly who she was meant to be again. It made her answer with confidence.

“I have to. The people who live down here might look at us in our sunlit world talking of love and light and think us weak for it. But trying to believe the best in everyone and everything, it's hard. It's so hard. Even people like Samovoth who are obviously too far gone to save make it hard, because we wonder if there wasn't another way. But when it pays off, it really pays off. And that's when you can look at the gods above of us and say, 'I see now. I really, really see what you meant all that time and through all that struggle when everything was wrong and nothing made sense. Thank you'”

The sorceress's eye seemed to gaze into a shrouded distance within herself. “Yes. When you put it that way, maybe it doesn't seem as weak as I've always been taught. When we get out of here, maybe--”

Someone hammered on the southern door of the lab, followed by an urgent male Drow voice. 

“Sir, Zhamira and the human woman have escaped. Sir? Are you there?”

Seelah and Zhamira had barred both sets of doors out of the place following the fight against Samovoth and this one rattled furiously as the soldier on the other side tried to enter. When he spoke again, it was in Orcish, of all things.

“Break it down.”

The door began to shudder under a rain of blows, accompanied by savage grunts. Seelah gazed upon that buckling door with dread.

“Do they have Orc slaves here?”

“A few. Most Drow don't have the physique for beating down doors. It's useful to have someone around who does.”

“Right.” She turned to face the double doors on the opposite end. “What's through there?”

“Barracks.”

Seelah gaped at her. “Barracks!? As in _barracks,_ barracks? _Soldier_ barracks?”

“I'm afraid so.”

“When were you going to tell me that?”

Zhamira flung her arms wide. “One problem at a time, like we keep saying! We hadn't gotten to that problem yet.”

They heard commotion from the barracks side of that door and an unceasing rain of blows began to fall upon it. Both it and its counterpart at the other end were breaking.

“I'd say that problem has now gotten to us,” said Seelah grimly. “Trapdoor!”

Their sprint to the trapdoor by the torture table came up short as it flew out before them and out tromped a squadron of Drow guards led by, of all people, Kemoyra, the slave woman they had beat unconscious earlier.

“The master! He's dead!” cried one of the guards as he caught sight of Samovoth's headless, mangled body. “These slaves have killed him!”

“Fat lot of good it did them,” Kemoyra said, smugly folding her arms under her bosom. “I hope you're satisfied with your revenge, Zhamira. Because what you'll face now is ten thousand times worth than what would have happened had you simply lived out your days under him in peace.”

Zhamira and Seelah had assumed fighting stances while the guards fanned out around them. The two sets of double doors burst inward almost simultaneously, admitting a few dozen more guards. They were doomed, but gave no sign of surrendering.

“And how will you live out your days?” Seelah challenged. “Your master's dead but you're still a slave. You could have come with us, Kemoyra, and been free too. I know you and Zhamira were rivals once. But was your desire for revenge against her really worth continuing to live like this?”

The Drow woman's jaw dropped. “Rivals? Is that what she told you? We were lovers! And all the time we were together she was feeding information to Samovoth's family so that they could bring our House to its knees! My only consolation – literally the only thing I have stayed alive for – is knowing that they played her for a fool just like she played me; taking advantage of her to bring her House down too!

“I can see you're determined to die here, human. That's fine. I don't blame you. But whatever she said to get you this far with her, I guarantee you it was a lie. And you'll only be remembered as the last in a long line of people that Zhamira Do'Hathaanan managed to dupe.”

Seelah did not challenge or argue with Kemoyra. In a voice too low for the enemies to understand, she asked, “Zhamira, is this true?”

The sorceress's throat pumped in a hard, regretful swallow. “A minute ago when you said how believing the best about people was hard? Well I wasn't gonna make it any easier.”

In one movement Seelah sheathed her sword and grabbed the adamantine spear out of Zhamira's hand. Kemoyra giggled with sadistic glee.

“Yes! Turn on her! Show her how it feels! I knew I would never get to be the one to kill you, Zhamira, but seeing you ended by another jilted lover will do!”

Seelah did indeed make it look like she was ready to attack Zhamira. But to the frightened Drow she said, “Drink your potion of _Water Breathing,_ then use the wand of _Ant Haul_ on yourself.”

Zhamira blinked in confusion. “Why?”

“Because I can't swim in this armor. You're going to have to carry me.”

“Oh my-- Oh no.” She fumbled in the bag for an instant. Before the guards understood that something was up, she was bolting the vial of blue liquid down her throat and the tip of the wand was glowing as she pressed it to her sternum.

The guards began to close in, but froze as Seelah hurled adamantine-tipped spear with a roar. It seemed to travel slowly, almost lazily through the air. All eyes followed it until it sank halfway up its shaft into the thick glass wall that held back the vast underground lake.

For one tense, horrible moment nothing happened. Then a riot of cracks spiderwebbed out of the aperture. Kemoyra screamed and the guards began to run as more and more cracks tore through the glass. But then there was no glass, only the greedy roar of endless tons of water as the subterranean sea crashed in upon them all.

\---

Seelah awoke in cool blackness that held her on all sides. The blackness filled her lungs as she breathed in and out, nourishing her life force as well as air ever had. In the distance she could make out the shapes of Drow, thrashing as they drowned. They were hundreds of feet underwater; too far for the armored guards to swim. But Seelah did not drown, nor did she swim. Rather she rose from the darkness, toward the lake's surface and the light. Zhamira's black legs kicked relentlessly beside her, propelling them upward. The Drow woman held onto Seelah's cape, slowed by the weight of the armor but not letting go of her all the same.

The ascent to the surface of the lake seemed to take forever, the swim to the nearest shoreline as long again. Fatigue had take its toll on the sorceress in spite of the Ant Haul spell and she paused only to expel the water from her lungs before collapsing and lying motionless save for her deep, heaving breaths. Although she had not exerted herself nearly as much, Seelah felt every bit as weary, but forced herself to peel off the armor, releasing all the water trapped within.

She could see the Drow city in the distance and it appeared to be in chaos. Someone must have escaped to tell them of the flooding of the stronghold below. She knew that she'd had no choice in what she had done, but regret filled her all the same and she offered a heartfelt prayer to the Inheritor for any slaves or other innocents who might have still been inside the stronghold. She prayed they had escaped or been spared somehow.

“If anyone survived, it was probably Kemoyra,” Zhamira said between breaths. “She's a Drow woman with a grudge. We can be somewhat hard to kill.”

“We shouldn't stay to find out,” Seelah replied. 

She put her armor back on, helped Zhamira to her feet and they trudged away from the prison they had drowned in their passing. But Seelah did spare a backward glance for those she had doomed and those whose fates she would never know.

\--- 

They walked endless miles. Zhamira used prestidigitation cantrips to dry their sodden clothing, but other than that she spoke very little. Seelah filled the silences as they marched, talking of the surface world, the Iomedean faith, but most of all of her companions Channa-Ti and Simoun. They were more than just companions, she explained: they were a true family. And Zhamira joining them was a foregone conclusion.

They had a rendezvous point in the higher tunnels in case a scenario exactly like this one had happened. Zhamira knew the area and told her the way to go, but did not share the Paladin's enthusiasm.

“It's been days – maybe weeks. I don't know, I haven't had a real sense of time for years now. But either way, how can you be sure they'll even still be there?”

The Paladin smiled. “Because they will be.”

And as they neared the appointed place, sure enough, they heard voices.

“One more day. Just one more day, Simoun?”

“One more day until what, Channa-Ti? We go back? Give up?”

“No,” came the Half-Elf Druid's voice, full of firm resolve. “We go back down there and find her.”

Grinning, Seelah opened her mouth to call out but was stopped by a hand upon her shoulders.

A clawed hand.

She spun to see her lover and ally standing with talons extended.

“My own family is dead because of me,” Zhamira hissed, contemptuously. “So is Kemoyra's. Why would you want me in yours? Why would you think I want to be in yours?”

“Zhamira, don't do this. You don't have to be afraid anymore. Samovoth is gone. That life, everything you've done, it's all behind you now. You can start again!”

She held her misshapen demon hands up for the Paladin to see. “Stop blaming Samovoth for the way that I am. I don't. I understand now. He didn't make me into this. He just brought out in me what was already there. He didn't make me betray Kemoyra or my own House either. It's just what I do. I earn trust, then I lose it. I destroy. I betray. You should thank me that I'm stopping myself from doing it to you!”

Seelah stared dumbstruck, but her disbelief did not override her perception. Something was closing in. They were no longer alone. She whirled, half drawing her sword. From behind her, Zhamira's voice faded to a whisper.

“Maybe someday you will.”

Seelah bounded around the corner into the open and nearly brought her sword down on a very surprised Simoun. 

“Seelah! Is it really you? Are you really alive?”

The Sylph rogue was so overjoyed she did not even realize her own stealth had nearly gotten her killed. She was quickly joined by Channa-Ti, trotting up behind. 

“I can't believe it. I can't believe you're here after all this time!”

Seelah did not have to look behind her to know that Zhamira was no longer there.

“Nothing could keep me from returning to the two of you. Nothing at all.”

The trio lost themselves in furious embraces and passionate kisses. But the newfound haunted look in Seelah's eyes did not escape them.

“Seelah, what happened to you down there” Channa-Ti asked. “We were afraid those Drow had killed you. Or worse.”

“No. I saw things down there. But I've been on my way back to you since the moment were separated.”

It was not a lie.

“Seelah.” Simoun gave her a questioning look. “Who were you talking to right before I found you here? I was sure I heard another voice.”

The Paladin sighed, the weight of her very real confusion and pain finally taking over. “I was sure I did too. I thought I did the entire time I was lost and trying to find my way back here. But these tunnels play tricks on the mind. I guess it turns out I was just talking to myself the entire time.”

Something in her face must have told the two women not to question further. They helped her back to camp and made ready to leave the Darklands behind them. 

But Seelah could sense violet eyes watching from the distance and knew that they couldn't leave the Darklands behind. Not fully. A part of the Darklands followed them now and would face Seelah again. Whether in love or destruction, the weary Paladin did not know, and dared not hope.

The End


End file.
